europe

Travelling to Europe, wherever you go, is quite the experience. The rich history, varied multiculturalism and cuisine all make for a trip that you won’t easily forget. Like any vacation, you’re probably wondering how you can make the most of the time. There are a lot of answers I could offer here, but there are a few big things you should keep in mind for Europe. Here’s how to get the most from your trip.

First of all, look for ways to save money. As fascinating as Europe is, many of its more populated areas aren’t exactly cheap. If you’re planning on using a phone out there, then get a European SIM card. Getting a data plan for your SIM will allow you to get up maps and book excursions much easier. It will also ensure you don’t spend a fortune through your American plan. Keep an eye on the exchange rate too. Euros, pounds and Scandinavian crowns fluctuate in value pretty often. If there’s a big change before your trip, seize the opportunity. Take your time looking for hotels, too. Hotels in European cities can be horribly expensive. Check out Hotwire hotels for some pretty good deals.

If you want to hit several European locations, then travel by train or bus as opposed to flying. Although this takes a little longer, Europe has some truly stunning countryside. Europe is a big continent, and those long trips will allow you to meet some interesting characters. Hopefully there won’t be too much of a language barrier there! Travelling by train or bus is also significantly cheaper than by air, and if you book in advance you can save an absolutely incredible sum! By using train routes, you’ll also be dropped off in the centre of your final destination. This will help you avoid all the hassle of an airport, and make orientation easier once you arrive.

Finally, research the things you want to see. Having a plan that’s far too rigid can ruin the feeling of a trip. However, Europe is one of those areas where there’s things that you simply can’t miss out on. Sit down with your travelling buddy, and make a list of all the specific places you want to check out. This will help you keep the pace, and avoid any nagging regrets when you’re back on the other side of the Atlantic. If your trip is going to span the continent, you should pack light as well. Bring money rather than things. If you have timetables you need to stick to, you don’t want to be scrambling to pack everything up and risk losing something important. Keep some empty space in your cases, and you’ll have more room to fit souvenirs!

I hope these tips will help you make the most of your trip around this incredible continent. Although preparation is important for any kind of trip, don’t let it dull down your experience. Every country in Europe is full of exciting things to discover. Play things by ear every now and then. You won’t regret it!

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has announced that Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych intends to sign a deal on closer EU ties after all.

Baroness Catherine Ashton was speaking as pro-EU protesters continued to paralyze the centre of Kiev over Viktor Yanokovych’s decision not to sign the EU association agreement.

The president’s U-turn late last month followed pressure from Russia.

Catherine Ashton said Viktor Yanukovych had assured her when they met that his aim was to sign the agreement.

The baroness did not give an indication of when she expected this to happen.

She said his concern during their talks was the “short term economic issues” that Ukraine faced.

Catherine Ashton met President Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev

Viktor Yanukovych pulled out of the deal last month, explaining that Kiev could not afford to sacrifice trade with Russia. While adding that he still aimed to sign the deal, Viktor Yanukovych said Ukraine would need at least 20 billion euros ($27 billion) a year to upgrade its economy.

Catherine Ashton said on Thursday: “It is my view that those challenges, which are real, can be addressed by the support that not only comes from the European Union institutions, but actually by showing that he has a serious economic plan in signing the association agreement also will help to bring in the kind of investment that he needs.”

The Ukrainian government’s handling of the pro-EU protests in Independence Square in Kiev has met with a stern response from both the European Union and the US.

Police moved into the main protest camp in the early hours of Wednesday, prompting US Secretary of State John Kerry to express “disgust” at the government’s treatment of a peaceful protest.

At least nine people were detained and there were some reports of police using violence. The state department said later it was considering a range of responses including sanctions.

After her meeting with Viktor Yanukovych on Thursday, Catherine Ashton said she had insisted on the release of anyone arrested because of the protests and that the Ukrainian president had assured her that would happen.

Moscow is concerned the EU free trade deal with Kiev would flood the Russian market and wants Ukraine to sign up to a customs union that includes Belarus and Kazakhstan.

In his annual address to the Russian parliament on Thursday, President Vladimir Putin said he hoped a solution to Ukraine’s crisis could be found and insisted the customs union would not be forced on Kiev.

Speaking at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said the EU will not accept a “veto” by Russia on the bloc’s ties with former Soviet republics.

Jose Manuel Barroso said the era of “limited sovereignty was over in Europe”.

The summit failed to revive an association agreement with Ukraine that was due to be its centrepiece.

Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych said he could not afford to sacrifice trade with Russia – which opposes the deal – for EU ties.

Viktor Yanukovych froze plans to sign Ukraine’s trade deal last week. In Vilnius, he defended his refusal to sign, saying the EU was not offering adequate financial aid.

After the two-day summit, Jose Manuel Barroso said: “We will not give in to external pressure, not the least from Russia.

“What we cannot accept is a condition on a bilateral agreement to have a kind of a possible veto of a third country. This is contrary to all principles of international law.”

EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy said the parties had been “really close” to signing the association agreement, but added that “we need to overcome pressure from abroad”.

“We are embarked on a long journey, helping Ukraine to become, as others, what we call now, <<new member states>>. But we have to set aside short-term political calculations.”

However, progress was made with two other ex-Soviet states, Georgia and Moldova.

Facebook has decided to suspend the facial-recognition tool that suggests when registered users could be tagged in photographs uploaded to its website.

The move follows a review of Facebook’s efforts to implement changes recommended by the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland last year.

Billy Hawkes, who did not request the tool’s total removal, said he was encouraged by the decision to switch it off for users in Europe by 15 October.

It is already unavailable to new users.

Facebook has decided to suspend the facial-recognition tool

Billy Hawkes said Facebook “is sending a clear signal of its wish to demonstrate its commitment to best practice in data protection compliance”.

Richard Allan, Facebook director of policy for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “The EU has looked at the issue of securing consent for this kind of technology and issued new guidance.

“Our intention is to reinstate the tag-suggest feature, but consistent with new guidelines. The service will need a different form of notice and consent.”

The facial-recognition tool was not part of the company’s commercial activities and did not generate many user complaints, he added.

In December 2011 the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) gave Facebook six months to comply with its recommendations.

They included more transparency about how data is used and individuals are targeted by advertisers and more user control over privacy settings.

On Friday, Richard Allan said: “When you think of the very wide ranging investigation the DPC carried out into Facebook, they looked at every aspect of our service, and our overall scorecard is very good.

“In the vast majority of areas the DPC looked into, they found we are behaving in a way that’s not just compliant but a reasonable model for good practice.”

Also on Friday, the DPC said there were still some areas where more work was required, and it has asked for another update from Facebook in these areas in four weeks’ time.

Deputy Commissioner Gary Davis said the DPC remained concerned about whether photos marked for deletion were actually being deleted within 40 days as required under Irish Data Protection law.

“We also want some clarity about inactive and deactivated accounts – we think Facebook should contact those users after a period of time and see whether they want to come back,” he said.

Many people did return to the website after long periods away, Gary Davis said, but users with inactive accounts should be contacted within two years of their last log-in.

Gary Davis also said he would like Facebook to do more to educate existing users about its privacy policies.

“We would also like more information in relation to advertising – there is the potential for the use of terms that could be sensitive – such as ethnicity, trade union membership, political affiliation – to be used by advertisers to target others based on those words,” he said.

But he added: “The discussions and negotiations that have taken place, while often robust on both sides, were at all times constructive with a collective goal of compliance with data protection requirements.”

Europe has almost exhausted its stock of old-style internet addresses.

Strict rationing of these addresses – called IPv4 – has been started by the body that hands them out in Europe.

From now on, companies can only make one more application for IPv4 addresses and, if successful, will only get 1,024 of them.

In addition, any application for more old addresses must demonstrate how an organization is using the new, replacement, addressing scheme.

“The day has come, finally,” said Axel Pawlik, managing director of the Ripe NCC that hands out addresses to European ISPs, firms and other organizations.

Europe has almost exhausted its stock of old-style internet addresses

Every device that goes online is allocated a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address.

The internet grew up using an addressing scheme called IP Version 4 (IPv4). In the 1970s when the web was being built the 4.3 billion IP addresses allowed by IPv4 were thought to be enough.

However, the rapid growth of the internet and popularity of the web have swiftly exhausted this pool.

The growth of the net is linked to the size of the pool because everything that connects to the net needs an IP address to send and receive data.

Plans are afoot to move to a new scheme, known as IP Version 6 (IPv6), that has an effectively inexhaustible supply of addresses.

On 14 September Ripe NCC got down to its last 16 million IPv4 addresses. While this might sound a lot, said Axel Pawlik, the use of this last substantial block would be so heavily restricted that the supply could be considered to be at an end.

“Applicants will only get about 1,000 addresses and that’s it and they only get them once and that’s the end of it,” said Axel Pawlik,

To even get that small number of IPv4 addresses, he said, applicants must already have an allocation of IPv6 addresses and demonstrate how they planned to use them.

Immediately prior to reaching the last big block Ripe was handing out just under four million IPv4 addresses every 10 days.

Anyone planning expansion based around the net should already be committed to using IPv6, said Axel Pawlik.

Other techniques based around technical tricks that share IPv4 addresses among many different devices would prove increasingly unworkable, he said.

“They are complicated, potentially unstable and expensive,” he said.

“The other route they could go is to v6 as it’s in most of the net equipment now.”

Facebook users faced problems accessing the social network in many countries across Europe for about two hours on Wednesday due to “technical difficulties”.

Facebook smartphone and tablet apps were also affected, as users reported on Twitter.

The company apologized for the incident and said the issue was now resolved.

“Today we experienced technical difficulties causing the site to be unavailable for a number of users in Europe,” Facebook said in a statement.

“The issue has been resolved and everyone should now have access to Facebook. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

More isolated accounts of inaccessibility were posted by users in further afield places such as Pakistan and South Korea.

Facebook users faced problems accessing the social network in many countries across Europe for about two hours on Wednesday due to "technical difficulties"

Facebook has about 850 million users worldwide and many took to Twitter to share information about the down time, with “#facebookdown “quickly becoming a trending topic on the microblogging site.

Most took a humorous view, with user @Purple_Cow tweeting: “#Facebook is #down, expect a surge in productivity in offices everywhere today.”

However, some website owners who make use of the Facebook Connect service – which allows people to log into external sites by using their Facebook account – were left frustrated by the technical issues.

Launched in February 2004, last month Facebook announced plans to float on the stock market. It seeks to raise $5 billion from the move, making it the biggest sale of shares by an internet company.

This website has updated its privacy policy in compliance with EU GDPR 2016/679. Please read this to review the updates about which personal data we collect on our site. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our updated policy.AcceptRejectRead More